Stark (30 page)

146: TERMINAL TERMINA?

D
on’t make any sudden moves or noises, Ms Kelly,’ said the lead thug. ‘From what you already know of us, I presume that you can guess that we own this town. There is no one here to help you.’

Chrissy knew that he was right, suddenly she nearly fainted with exhaustion. The flight from her apartment with the door being smashed behind her seemed a century away; and now it was over, she was caught and was going to die, probably never even knowing what it had all been about.

‘OK, kill me,’ she said quietly.

‘Please don’t be so silly and melodramatic, Ms Kelly?’ the thug said with the same smile as if he were greeting an old friend. ‘We want you to come with us, that is all, to answer a few questions.’

Of course, reasoned Chrissy, they would need to know if she had told anyone of her suspicions besides Toole; if she had left any notes. Oh well, she was going to stay alive an hour or two longer. It didn’t matter, she felt dead.

‘Come along, then, Christine, we will show you to your car.’ The four men closed around her. She stepped out of the puddle of her will to live and surrendered to her captors. As they led her out she began to weep quietly and copiously.

147: A KNIGHT IN SHINY TROUSERS

I
t was not the spirit of the Phantom that forced Zimmerman to act, although he didn’t take much persuasion. He decided to intervene on the girl’s behalf because as the men turned around to lead her out he recognized one of the men they had encountered at the wire two nights previously. Not the one whose arm he had broken, the other one. This was proof that whoever the girl was, she was an enemy of whatever it was that lay behind the wire; possibly a much better informed enemy than Zimm and his companions were. Maybe she could shed light in the darkness. Anyway, it did not matter, he now knew she was definitely a comrade in arms and therefore Zimm could not desert her. That was one of the rules of war; you looked out for your brothers, or, in this case, sister.

Still, tough situation.

There were four of them, obviously armed and, Zimm had no doubt, virtually immune from prosecution in this little town that had become an outpost of the Moorcock empire. Besides this, he guessed their transport would be waiting just outside in the car park and once they were in that they were out of Zimmerman’s reach.

Pausing only to grab his comics, which fortuitously slipped onto the carousel at that moment, Zimmerman sprinted out to the car park in order to get ahead of them. Four men surrounding a prisoner move fairly slowly and Zimmerman, of course, moved extremely quickly, and so he was out in the car park before Chrissy’s tears had even begun to flow.

Anyone looking at him, knowing his intentions, would have thought Zimmerman a strange sort of saviour in his ancient shiny loon pants and his sweaty singlet. Which just goes to show that you should never judge a book by its cover or, for that matter, a knight by his trousers. After all, Superman wears red knickers, blue tights and knee-high booties.

148: MEANWHILE EVERYBODY WAS GETTING CANCER

C
D had accompanied Zimmerman to the airport but had elected to stay in the car. It was a beautiful day, the top was down and he was happy to soak up the rays rather than hang around in a crowded non-air-conditioned shed. Had he known a little more about the state of the ozone layer he might have felt a little differently and bolted for the shade, no matter how hot and sweaty it was.

Oh sure, CD, like everybody in the world, especially Australians, was aware that the layer was under pressure and that without it the sun might give you skin cancer. But it was so difficult to believe it. The sun looked the same as it had always done; it felt just as good; it had the same revitalizing powers it had always had and it still made all the girls look mega-sauce.

The problem with the ozone layer is it is such a tiny, thin, gossamer layer, like a sheet of very soft loo paper. The difference being that with loo paper, one notices its absence immediately, because you’re staggering about with your trousers around your ankles looking for an old magazine to use instead. With the ozone layer you don’t even notice it’s gone. Not, that is, until they’re hacking the malignant melanomas off you.

149: ZIMM PICKS UP A GIRL

S
o CD sat in the car, in the car park, contentedly having his skin cells turned cancerous by the photo-power of the sun, wondering why Zimmerman, who was normally so cool and laid back; who normally motivated himself about the place in a manner that CD felt was rather reminiscent of his own street-cool lope (it wasn’t), was sprinting towards him at such an astonishing speed. He was about to comment, but Zimmerman’s manner cut him sort.

‘Listen, get the engine running, and put it in gear, I’ve got to get a girl, OK, man? Now, once she’s in the wheels, burn man, burn OK? Don’t look back, don’t stop on red, don’t pick up hitch-hikers. Get her home, then dump the wheels. Dig?’

CD was about to protest, he understood Zimmerman’s sexual frustrations, he sympathized with it, after all, he was not exactly getting any action himself, but he could not be part of abduction, no way. Zimmerman would simply have to take more cold showers.

Unfortunately CD was not in a position to say anything because Zimm was sprinting back towards the terminal building.

CD turned on the engine and put the car into first. Despite his reservations one’s tendency with Zimmerman — especially this new, dynamic and, being honest, violent Zimmerman was to do what he said.

Zimm arrived back just as the little party of thugs was emerging from the shed with their prey, in fact he nearly blundered into them. Under the circumstances there was little he could do other than confront them right there and then.

‘Excuse me, Miss, but do you want to go with these men?’ he said.

Chrissy did not reply, she already had Toole’s death on her conscience, she did not want another. The leader of the group pushed Zimm and he took a step back.

‘She’s crying because she’s glad to be home. Now piss off.’

‘Shit man, if you cry like that coming to a dump like Bullens, you have low expectations in life, real low expectations,’ said Zimm, sizing up the opposition. ‘Imagine if she ever got to Disneyland, her head would just totally explode.’

The fellow in charge was about to punch Zimm out of the way when one of his companions spoke up. ‘Mr Rourke, this is the bastard who broke Pete’s arm, I think maybe we should take him too.’

‘This guy did it?’ said Mr Rourke. ‘Now you said the man who did Pete was the hardest fellah you ever did encounter. Fact is, I reckon you said there was six of him. Now are you trying to tell me that this little scruffy piece of hippy shit here took you and Pete to the cleaners?’

Pete’s hapless companion was spared further embarrassment because at this point Zimm reckoned that the four blokes were about as distracted as they were ever going to be. He drove his fist full into the face of Mr Rourke, knuckling his eyes and breaking his nose. Following through in fact, almost as part of the same movement, he brought up his right boot between the other front man’s legs. He used all of his considerable force, wishing to be absolutely sure that with his first two blows he would halve the odds properly. In fact, he probably overdid it, cracking the man’s pelvic bone, but it was a long time since Zimm had had bollocks himself and he had forgotten just how little force is required to be effective. Nit-picking aside, Zimmerman was doing extremely well; the fight had been in progress for only just one second, and his second victim was already crumpling up. Chrissy was now guarded only from behind. Zimm pulled her forward.

‘Across the car park,’ he spoke urgently but without alarm, ‘Red’66 FC Holden…’

He pushed her behind him and hurled himself at the other two guards, crashing both to the ground, one with each hand.

‘Go!’ he shouted, thanking heaven that Rachel had had the foresight to own a highly distinctive car.

As a journo, Chrissy had long since learnt to take her luck where she found it. She ran into the car park and glanced around wildly. Holden is the indigenous Australian car manufacturer and, being an American, Chrissy had no idea what the classic ‘66 FC looked like. On the other hand, there was clearly only one old car hanging out in that boom town car park. What’s more, it was red, its engine was running and there was a strange, funny little man in sunglasses waving at her.

CD had watched the whole incident with fear and awe. Zimmerman had definitely been hiding his light under a bushel, and a ten foot, lead-lined concrete bushel at that. Zimm’s despatch of the front two guys had been awesome. CD now understood that Zimmerman’s motives must be honourable and that he wished CD to help him save a person in distress. He shouted and waved, and whilst Zimmerman wrestled with the two remaining thugs, Chrissy rushed across the car park and jumped in beside CD.

Pausing only to momentarily slightly adjust his shades and say, ‘Hi, I’m CD and I will be your driver on this trip,’ he headed for the exit at speed. He had never been involved in anything remotely as exciting as this before and he grabbed his opportunity to get the pose just right.

‘Who the hell was that guy?’ asked Chrissy, who was a pretty cool customer herself and had already regained her composure. ‘Oh him,’ said CD casually, ‘yeah, he’s one of the team.’ It was magnificent posing. But then CD blew it by saying, ‘and me, I am as well and what’s more, he’s my mate, yeah really, he’s my mate, I know him.’

150: WORLD OPPOSITION TO STARK UNITES

E
verybody was beginning to be really scared now.

Zimmerman had still not returned. It had been two and a half hours since CD had sneaked Chrissy back to the Culboons’ place, having first left the Holden well out of town. That meant a good four hours since the incident at the airport, and Zimmerman had not returned. What’s more, the long wait had left plenty of time for Chrissy to explain her recent history. A history of murder; a history that included things like the CIA; a history that hinted at unseen and incomprehensibly colossal power — no wonder they were worried. Walter considered suggesting that they all try to centre themselves, in order to avoid becoming uptight. Unfortunately, under the circumstances, uptightness would only have been avoided by a full frontal lobotomy.

CD had enjoyed it at first. ‘This is Chrissy,’ he had announced dramatically. ‘Zimmerman and I rescued her at the airport. One of the guys who was at the wire last night and three others were trying to take her away.’

The Culboons were hospitable souls and Chrissy was soon sat on the sofa with a beer and a vegamite sandwich. Walter asked her what the problem had been at the airport.

‘They were going to kill me,’ said Chrissy, with firm conviction. ‘They had tracked me from the States, and they were going to kill me.’

‘Are you sure man?’ asked Walter. ‘I mean, that is a very heavy presumption, ‘kill’ is a kind of terminal word, you know? Maybe they were just going to scare you a bit.’

‘They were definitely going to kill me,’ replied Chrissy.

‘Why?’ asked Rachel spotting the most fruitful line of questioning.

‘Because they think I know something about what they’re up to.’

‘And do you?’ asked Rachel, anxious not to let Walter start.

‘No,’ Chrissy said and then added, ‘do you?’

‘Do we what?’ asked Rachel.

‘Know anything about what they’re up to.’

‘What who are up to?’

‘I don’t know.’

There was a pause as everyone realized that the situation was getting confusing.

‘Now look here,’ Mrs Culboon said, making everybody look. ‘It seems that this lady has had trouble with the same bastards as shot at us last night. Now I don’t know what that means in the city, but out here in the country it means you got a mate till proved otherwise. So, if Mr Culboon would be so good as to pay another visit to the refrigerator, perhaps we can exchange notes. Yes, I reckon that’s about what we should do.’

They all had a beer and Walter explained to Chrissy the scant details of their progress to Bullens Creek.

‘What you have to dig here, Chrissy, is that we are like environment orientated, you know? Like, we stand up for the earth, so when we found out that major fat cat bread- heads were forcing people off their land for no apparent reason —’

‘By whom you mean Silvester Moorcock and Ocker Tyron, is that right?’

‘Dig! Nail on the head time, right,’ said Walter, amazed. ‘Wow, that is uncanny man, I mean that is weird! Did you do that with telepathy or what? Is it a ley line thing? Like, how did you know that those two cats were doing stuff out here?’

‘I read it in the newspaper,’ replied Chrissy.

Walter was even more impressed. ‘Man that is so together! That is clear thinking lady! Why didn’t we think of that?’

‘Well it’s only become financial news in the last few days,’ said Chrissy. ‘This damn crash and depression thing has made any development into a story. Especially when it’s a leisure complex. I guess you people have been onto this for longer than that?’

‘True enough,’ said Walter. ‘I mean when our man CD here sussed the connection and we became hip to just how much trouble these dudes were going to, just in order to get hold of a bit of territory that weren’t worth shit. Like, we thought we’d have a look…’

Rachel decided to take over at this point because, as always, it looked like it was going to take Walter a long time to say anything. She explained to Chrissy about the Nazi attack that had made them suspicious; about Aristos, and Moorcock denying his involvement with Tyron. She explained everything they knew, which was, of course, almost nothing, except that they had smelt rocket fuel and that security was strangely too tight for a hotel complex.

In return Chrissy explained the long and terrifying sequence of events that had led her to Bullens Creek airport and near death.

When she had finished there was near stunned silence. Even Mrs Culboon was lost for words, for a moment. Then inevitably she laughed.

‘Well, Jes-us this is rich don’t you think, Mr Culboon! Here’s us thinking we’re uncovering a bit of illegal mining or something and it turns out there is a full-on global conspiracy going on right where we used to shower and shit.’

It never crossed any of their minds to doubt the seriousness of Chrissy’s conclusions, they accepted absolutely that Linda and Toole had been murdered and that only Zimmerman had saved Chrissy from the same fate. And where was Zimmerman?